How a brand new well being fee might assist scale back smoking in China – NEWPAPER24

How a brand new well being fee might assist scale back smoking in China

2018-03-14 23:01:46

China is hoping that a change to its authorities construction will assist the marketing campaign to get a number of the nation’s 350 million people who smoke to stop the behavior.

As a part of a sweeping reshuffle, a brand new well being fee will take over from the business ministry as the federal government physique liable for tobacco management, implementing a set of worldwide guidelines from the World Well being Organisation.

Beijing signed the Framework Conference on Tobacco Management in 2003 and it took impact in China in 2006. However compliance has been restricted, and China remains to be a nasty instance on smoking greater than a decade after Beijing determined to implement the principles.

China is the world’s largest producer and shopper of tobacco. About one in each three of the world’s people who smoke lives in China, they usually use about 44 per cent of the tobacco manufactured globally, in accordance with WHO information.

China faces big prices until it reduces smoking now: WHO

Analysts say one of many causes China has seen little progress in discouraging smoking is that the Ministry of Trade and Info Know-how has been accountable for tobacco management, whereas it additionally has shut ties to the business through China Nationwide Tobacco Corp and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.

The state of affairs of the business ministry taking duty for each tobacco management and the tobacco business is “a darkish joke”, Wu Yiqun, a researcher on the Chinese language Centre for Illness Management and Prevention, mentioned in a press release.

Wu, an advocate of stricter tobacco management, additionally mentioned it was a direct “violation” of the conference, which states that the principles ought to be applied by an authority with out business pursuits.

World’s tobacco companies are on a roll whilst China market shrinks

However she was hopeful that the change to the brand new well being fee might result in extra severe and efficient tobacco management, saying it would free the marketing campaign “from the shackles of tobacco business pursuits”.

“It demonstrates China’s willpower to clear any obstacles in the best way of tobacco management,” she mentioned.

In China, some 27 per cent of the inhabitants smokes, versus the worldwide common of 22 per cent, and about 100,000 folks die from passive smoking-related diseases every year, in accordance with the WHO.

In whole, about a million deaths are attributable to tobacco yearly in China – and that quantity might rise to a few million by 2050 if the nation doesn’t act, the organisation has warned.

Whereas President Xi Jinping was praised as a “good mannequin” for quitting smoking by then WHO director normal Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun in 2016, the nation as an entire lags behind different locations in efforts to curb smoking by way of packaging, pricing and smoking bans in public areas.

On packaging, the objective below the framework is to have well being warnings masking greater than half of the principle show areas of tobacco merchandise, however in China the authorities have stored this to 30 per cent. Well being warnings are additionally not proven in footage or pictograms – which implies cigarettes are nonetheless a preferred present in Chinese language society. Beneath the framework, member international locations are speculated to ship on objectives three years after they signal the conference.

Are cigarettes too inexpensive for China’s younger folks?

Pricing can also be an issue. In response to a survey launched by the College of Worldwide Enterprise and Economics in Beijing this month, cigarettes are too low cost in China to discourage smoking, particularly amongst younger folks. A packet of cigarettes will be purchased for as little as three to five yuan, or about 50 to 80 US cents, in most cities and rural areas.

Smoking: Australia’s packing up, why can’t China, Indonesia?

The tobacco business can also be as an vital supply of presidency revenues in lots of elements of China, including one other layer of resistance to the stop marketing campaign. Imposing controls on smoking stays tough as a result of the business is state-owned and extremely profitable. Final yr, Chinese language producers of tobacco merchandise made 97.2 billion yuan in earnings, though that was down by 6.three per cent from 2016, in accordance with statistics bureau information.

A transfer to ban smoking in all indoor and a few outside public locations has additionally stumbled. The State Council, China’s cupboard, issued a draft legislation on the finish of 2014 which was tabled within the legislature in 2016. However a watered-down draft included exemptions resembling limiting non-smoking areas in workplaces to communal areas and permitting smoking areas in eating places and airports. The legislation has but to be handed.

A powerful function mannequin can assist China curb the issues of smoking

Particulars of how the brand new well being fee will sort out the combat towards tobacco are but to be revealed.

“The management handover is step one. The following potential step that we count on is to separate the regulatory function from gross sales and manufacturing within the tobacco business,” mentioned Wang Kean, director of the ThinkTank Analysis Centre for Well being Improvement in Beijing.

Who will likely be Beijing’s level man on Hong Kong? One of many huge unanswered questions from China’s political occasion of the yr – NEWPAPER24

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March 19, 2018

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Who will likely be Beijing’s level man on Hong Kong? One of many huge unanswered questions from China’s political occasion of the yr

2018-03-19 14:27:30

As the largest occasion on China’s political calendar involves a detailed, a number of key questions stay unanswered, together with who will oversee Hong Kong within the coming time period.

This yr’s session of the Nationwide Individuals’s Congress ends on Tuesday after two weeks of conferences in Beijing which have seen the passage of historic constitutional amendments to finish presidential time period limits and the fortification of the Communist Celebration in governance.

There have additionally been the disclosing of a brand new political line-up and a sweeping reorganisation of ministries beneath the State Council, China’s cupboard.

However a lot was left unsaid about modifications for smaller central authorities businesses, and the way the get together’s policymaking teams will tie in with state departments.

The blueprint for additional modifications at get together establishments stays unknown to the general public, regardless of the plan on revamping each the get together and the state departments being accredited in late February.

Meet the staff China expects to unknot ties with the USA

By way of Hong Kong, Beijing has but to say who the get together’s level particular person for the semi-autonomous metropolis will likely be in President Xi Jinping’s second time period.

If precedent is any information, one of many seven members on the Politburo Standing Committee – the very best echelon of the get together’s management – is prone to head the Central Coordination Group for Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, the get together’s decision-making physique for the particular administrative areas.

There was hypothesis that the group can be headed by newly appointed NPC chairman Li Zhanshu, orthe get together’s anti-graft tsar Zhao Leji or the ideology tsar Wang Huning – each Zhao and Wang attended the assembly of the Hong Kong delegations on the NPC and Chinese language Individuals’s Political Consultative Convention. There was additionally a suggestion that new Vice-President Wang Qishan may tackle the job, provided that Xi was the group’s head earlier than changing into president in 2012.

The project has been carefully watched, as town has grown extra politically divided since large-scale protests towards Beijing in help of common suffrage within the 2014.

There have additionally been rumours a couple of potential merger of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Workplace and the Taiwan Affairs Workplace throughout the State Council, a transfer that may put Hong Kong’s standing on a par with Taiwan.

However each Zhang Xiaoming and Wang Guangya, the serving and former HKMAO administrators respectively, stated they weren’t conscious of a merger.

On the finance entrance, China introduced a merger of its banking and insurance coverage watchdogs, the China Banking Regulatory Fee and the China Insurance coverage Regulatory Fee.

However there has not been an official announcement of who will head the consolidated physique, or the way it will function alongside the central financial institution. One attainable candidate for chief is CBRC chairman Guo Shuqing.

China can be shaking up its overseas affairs staff by merging two ministerial-level get together organisations beneath its prime diplomat Yang Jiechi, confirming an earlier South China Morning Publish report.

This may consolidate the get together’s Worldwide Liaison Division, which is answerable for relations with abroad political events, with the Workplace of the Central Main Group on International Affairs, the get together’s company for coordinating overseas coverage led by Yang.

Whereas it has not but been publicly introduced, Yang is anticipated to go the brand new physique and report back to Wang Qishan, the vice-president prone to be given the nation’s overseas affairs portfolio. However it isn’t recognized how the physique will function, given overlaps within the capabilities of the prevailing workplaces, and the way it will work with state establishments such because the Ministry of International Affairs.

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Meet the workforce China expects to unknot ties with america

2018-03-19 13:30:30

China has unveiled many of the primary gamers charged with dealing with the vexed Sino-US ties, with the elevation of International Minister Wang Yi to state councillor on the nationwide legislature’s annual assembly in Beijing on Monday.

Wang’s rise to state councillor – a place not beforehand held by a serving international minister – is amongst quite a few strikes anticipated to lift the profile of diplomats within the nation’s decision-making construction as North Korea, Taiwan and the South China Sea – and the US – loom as extra pressing priorities.

It additionally follows the naming of former anti-graft chief Wang Qishan as a vice-president dealing with international affairs, and Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s most trusted financial adviser, as vice-premier. Liu is predicted to handle the nation’s monetary and financial affairs, a serious supply of friction with the US.

The modifications come after greater than a decade of diminished standing for China’s diplomats within the decision-making construction.

From 1998 till late final 12 months, there have been no diplomats within the Communist Get together’s highly effective Politburo, and state councillor was essentially the most senior rank a diplomat might obtain.

However in October an overhaul of the system noticed former state councillor Yang Jiechi – the nation’s high diplomat – given one of many 25 seats on the Politburo. Liu was additionally named as a Politburo member.

Within the final month or so, the 2 new Politburo members have every made journeys to the US to attempt to defuse commerce tensions, their seniority a uncommon gesture of eagerness from Beijing to get to relations with Washington again on monitor.

A supply conversant in the management’s diplomatic technique mentioned Wang Qishan was anticipated to give attention to China’s relations with the US, with Wang Yi reporting to Yang, and Yang reporting to the vice-president.

As well as, Wang Qishan will turn out to be a member of the Central Main Group of International Affairs, a celebration physique that oversees worldwide relations.

China International Affairs College professor Su Hao mentioned the elevation of Wang Yi to state councillor additionally meant increased seniority for the Ministry of International Affairs.

“It will give Wang a better standing to coordinate and mobilise different departments,” Su mentioned.

Wang Yi, who has been international minister since 2013, is thought for his staunch defence of China’s positions in world affairs.

He mentioned it was a “strategic misjudgment” for the US to model China as a rival, and has additionally warned Washington to not get entangled in China’s disputes with different nations over the South China Sea.

There was no point out of Yang’s particular duties on the Nationwide Folks’s Congress on Monday, however international ministry spokesman Hua Chunying mentioned Yang would play a key position in China’s diplomacy as a Politburo member.

Su mentioned he anticipated Yang would train authority over different gamers in China’s international affairs coverage, together with the commerce ministry and the social gathering’s Worldwide Liaison Division, an company that manages abroad social gathering relations, particularly with North Korea.

Su mentioned that as a state physique the international ministry had “inadequate coordination” with the social gathering’s Worldwide Liaison Division, an administrative challenge that might be overcome by Yang’s Politburo standing.

The brand new diplomatic line-up comes amid setbacks in China’s efforts to increase its presence worldwide. Its infrastructure funding tasks underneath Xi’s signature “Belt and Street Initiative” have been seen by many as an try by Beijing to lure different nations to its facet, undermining the sovereignty of the challenge recipients.

China’s relations with the US are additionally on the wane. Regardless of their seniority, Yang and Liu failed to ascertain correct factors of contacts with US officers, and after their journeys the White Home demanded publicly that China to scale back its commerce surplus with the US by US$100 billion.

And on Friday, US President Donald Trump signed off a legislation that encourages US officers to go to Taiwan, triggering protests from Beijing that regards the self-ruled island as a wayward province.

Relations are additionally sophisticated by the departure of relative moderates within the White Home, together with former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former financial adviser Gary Cohn, who have been changed by hawkish figures, comparable to former Central Intelligence Company director Mike Pompeo.

Fudan College worldwide relations professor Pan Rui mentioned managing China’s relations with the US was the highest precedence for China’s new international coverage workforce.

“There are loads of obstacles dealing with the Sino-US relations. Managing such ties is the most important problem for the brand new workforce,” Pan mentioned.

Su mentioned different large jobs would come with China’s relations with its neighbours and their rising suspicions of China’s navy deployment within the South China Sea.

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Hong Kong election disqualification for individuals who foyer in opposition to one-party rule a ‘betrayal’ to metropolis values – NEWPAPER24

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March 19, 2018

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Hong Kong election disqualification for individuals who foyer in opposition to one-party rule a ‘betrayal’ to metropolis values

2018-03-19 12:53:07

Hong Kong authorized consultants mentioned on Monday that lawmakers mustn’t run the danger of disqualification for expressing pro-democracy views, rejecting a warning by the town’s sole member of China’s prime legislative physique.

Senior barristers Ronny Tong Ka-wah, Philip Dykes and Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun spoke simply days after Tam Yiu-chung, a member of the Nationwide Folks’s Congress Standing Committee, warned in an unique interview with the Submit that Hongkongers who chant slogans urging an finish to “one-party dictatorship” run the danger of being barred from future elections.

Tam’s comment got here after the NPC handed constitutional amendments that additional underlined the undisputed authority of the Communist Occasion.

Chan, former College of Hong Kong legislation dean, known as the comment a transparent “betrayal” of the town’s core values, as Tam was “near saying that something concerning the social gathering and the central authorities are past criticism”.

Professional-democracy activists and legislators additionally mentioned the warning and the amendments wouldn’t cease them from calling for political reforms on the mainland.

“The qualification of people for contesting within the Hong Kong Legislative Council [elections] needs to be thought-about in accordance with native laws.”

Because the Tiananmen Sq. crackdown on June four, 1989, Hong Kong has hosted an annual candlelight vigil to demand the “finish of one-party dictatorship” and accountability for the bloodbath.

Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, vice-chairman of the vigil’s organiser, the Hong Kong Alliance in Help of Patriotic Democratic Actions of China, mentioned they’ll proceed with their marketing campaign.

Within the run-up to a Legco by-election this month, Demosisto’s Agnes Chow Ting and two different hopefuls had been barred from operating, with election authorities citing requires the town’s “self-determination” as successfully asking for independence.

Requested if hopefuls would face the same destiny for calling for an finish to “one-party dictatorship”, Tong, a former Bar Affiliation chairman, mentioned Fundamental Regulation Article 104, the related provision within the metropolis’s mini-constitution, said that public officers, together with legislators, needed to swear to uphold the Fundamental Regulation and pledge “allegiance to the Hong Kong Particular Administrative Area of the Folks’s Republic of China”.

“It didn’t point out the structure. It implied that we have to pledge allegiance to the ‘one nation, two methods’ [principle] beneath the Chinese language structure, however to not the Communist Occasion,” he mentioned.

Tong now sits on the Govt Council, the town chief’s cupboard of coverage advisers.

“The one-party dictatorship could be very a lot a part of the socialist system and insurance policies, that are expressly said to not be practised in Hong Kong beneath Article 5 of the Fundamental Regulation,” Chan, the professor, mentioned.

The article states that “socialist system and insurance policies shall not be practised” in Hong Kong, and “the earlier capitalist system and lifestyle shall stay unchanged for 50 years” from the 1997 handover.

Bar Affiliation chairman Philip Dykes, talking in his private capability, rejected Tam’s warning, saying that he did not see any disagreement with the Chinese language structure would render any authorized penalties in Hong Kong, and it needs to be as much as legislators or candidates to train their freedom of expression.

Talking in Beijing on Monday, NPC deputy Cheng Yiu-tong declined to touch upon Tam’s warning, however mentioned it was “unrealistic” for folks to name for an finish to the Communist Occasion’s rule.

Within the interview, Tam additionally recommended that lawmakers shouldn’t be allowed to debate ending the “one-party dictatorship” in Legco.

Since 1997, the pan-democrats had offered a movement calling on lawmakers to “not overlook the June four incident”, however the movement was not mentioned in 2012 and 2016 as a result of the legislature ran out of time.

In 2007, Legco president Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai blocked dialogue of the movement after lawmaker “Lengthy Hair” Leung Kwok-hung tried to insert a clause calling for an finish to “one-party dictatorship”. Lawmaker Martin Lee Chu-ming’s model, with out the phrase, was ultimately put forth for dialogue.

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